We have considered the difficulties of pinning down family definitions and meanings. We now ask whether it is indeed important to explore and unravel these complexities. Do the varieties of family meanings – or the meaning of ‘family’ itself – matter, or do they just provide a minor intellectual diversion? You may like to pause here for a moment to consider how you would answer this question for yourself. Do you think they matter, and if so, in what ways?

At the same time, such judgements and responses are not just personal matters: they are also embedded in all sorts of wider and interpersonal processes of power and inequality. These processes shape social policies, professional interventions, and representations in the media, as well as underpinning everyday social interactions in family lives and relationships. If we focus on family meanings, we may not always put issues of power, material inequalities, and moral evaluations at the centre o

Definitions beg questions. So do social narratives and stories. Again, we need, as social scientists, to begin with an analytical task. What are the key claims that are being made in the common-sense story of the problem of crime? What are the core arguments that hold the whole thing together? There are a number of these, but two seem to be particularly important.

As you moved through the various techniques we can use to analyse media texts in Sections 2 to Section 4, you should have discovered how rich even the simplest text can be in its drawing on political, social and cultural meanings discernible by close attention. Textual analysis enables you to register and negotiate the polysemy of texts and to see how the preferred reading is not the only one available. The preferred reading may be given prominence, however, by anchoring or by the genre chose

The material presented here raises general themes of order and disorder, the way they are represented or signified, and the place of crime in these representations. The material is based upon an audio file, originally 29 minutes in length, and examines the problem of crime in relation to the city of Glasgow. It was recorded in 1999.

This OpenLearn course provides a sample of Level 2 study in Author(s): The Open University

This free course provided an introduction to studying Computing and ICT. It took you through a series of exercises designed to develop your approach to study and learning at a distance and helped to improve your confidence as an independent learner.

Here is a statement of the data requirements for a product to support the registration of and provide help to students of a fictitious e-learning university.

A UK-based e-learning university needs to keep details of its students and staff, the courses that it offers and the performance of the students who study its courses. The university is administered in four geographical regions (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland).

If you have found this approach to learning interests you, you might like to take the analysis a stage further. To do Activity 4, you need to be studying a course so that you are engaged in learning on a regular basis. To examine your learning patterns, try keeping a 'learning diary' over a short period of time - at least a week - or maybe during the period that you are studying a particular section of your course.

In encouraging you to think explicitly about how you learn, as well as about what you learn, we are drawing on research about learning which has shown that this approach can actually improve your performance. Certainly it can and will make you a more efficient and effective learner. Before we start to explore the process, let us consider two general points about learning.

Each activity is followed by a discussion and examples of the responses of two students. Both students are studying Open University courses that will eventually count towards a degree. These are nine month distance learning courses.

Course material is delivered to students by post, email or online. Their assignments are submitted by post or email, marked either by a computer or a tutor, and returned. Open University students are provided with a tutor, regular tutorials and guidance on c

This section gives advice and guidance to help you compile and present a portfolio of selected work. You are strongly advised to read through this section so that you have an idea of what is expected.

The key skills assessment courses provide an opportunity for you to integrate your development of key skills with your work or study. You may choose to concentrate on skills that you need to develop and improve for your job, for a new course, or personally to help you keep abreast of new d

This free course provided an introduction to studying Information and Communication Technologies. It took you through a series of exercises designed to develop your approach to study and learning at a distance and helped to improve your confidence as an independent learner.

I am trying to encourage you to use diagrams, but there is a pitfall associated with this option. This option is one that many students do use, so it's worth exploring why it is not a particularly good idea. The following is a slight parody of the sort of written assignment I have in mind. The text reads something like this:

‘There are many ways in which diseases can be spread, see Figure 1.’

There then follows ‘Figure 1’ which is a direct copy of the diagram from the sour